A new investigation from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) released on Wednesday alleges that Meta paid mom influencers, doctors, and psychologists to promote Instagram's Teen Accounts. The campaign launched as the tech company faced growing criticism and legal pressure over its negative mental health impact on minors.
"Meta's influencer strategy sheds new light on its efforts to spin the public discourse on social media and kids," the TTP report states. "Faced with an onslaught of whistleblower revelations and lawsuits alleging it knowingly harmed children, Meta has responded by heavily marketing its Instagram child safety features. Leveraging social media personalities with substantial parent followings or medical credentials to parrot Meta talking points."
Legal Troubles Mounting
A New Mexico jury found the company liable for violating the state's Unfair Practices Act on March 24. The state attorney general had accused Meta of downplaying the safety of its apps and allowing predators access to underage users, which Meta denied. A Los Angeles jury also found Meta and Google liable for negligence on March 25, after a plaintiff argued that the companies knew their products were built to lure in young users without regard for their well-being.
Meta's recent public relations efforts seem to argue that the Teen Accounts are legally sound and safe, but legal experts are not so sure. Researchers at TPP argue that Meta was "heavily marketing its Instagram child safety features" in response to criticism over their approach to child safety on Instagram.
Expert Opinions on Meta's Strategy
"This is kind of a mind-warp situation," said Danielle Bass, a partner in the Technology Transactions and the Data, Privacy and Cybersecurity practice groups at Honigman LLP. "The Federal Trade Commission was created to protect consumers, and typically from brands. But we're talking about the platform in which people receive content. We're not actually talking about the content itself."
The TTP report also claimed that the company "deployed momfluencers" to bolster support for Meta's advocacy for legislation that would require Apple and Google app stores to be responsible for verifying users' ages before they download apps.
"Meta is fighting two fronts basically: Front one is in the courtroom," said Nikolas Guggenberger, an assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center. "This may well be Facebook's attempt to, as the TTP report put it, soften their image and maybe get juries or judges in a slightly less adversarial mood."
"The second front that they're fighting is the court of public opinion," Guggenberger added. "What Meta is doing is just a huge PR and influence campaign."
Did Meta's Paid Partnerships Violate FTC Rules?
"Meta's behavior raises serious FTC endorsement and disclosure concerns, and could be potentially deceptive," Bass said. "The underlying strategy isn't inherently illegal or deceptive — we're allowed to have a PR strategy, we're allowed to pay influencers, we're allowed to fund nonprofits or experts. However, the FTC has strict rules on how to properly advertise."
The FTC's guidelines require clear classification and a clear indication of a sponsored relationship. The "Paid Partnership" banner seen in some Instagram posts is not entirely sufficient. Disclosures should be in hashtags that cannot be hidden behind a "more" button or buried at the bottom of the caption. For video and audio, FTC guidelines require disclosure in the video and audio formats, typically through overlay text saying "Sponsored" or "Paid partnership with the brand." Overall, if a regular social media user does not immediately recognize they are watching an ad, it fails the FTC test.
"The core issue is straightforward: if Meta paid or otherwise compensated these creators, and those creators posted content promoting Teen Accounts without clearly disclosing that relationship, that is a textbook violation," said Laura Smith, legal director at Truth in Advertising.
The TTP report claims that "many of the influencer posts" had "easy-to-miss disclosures or hashtags" and that disclosures were "often missing." One example was Dr. Sheryl Ziegler, who has over 17,000 followers on Instagram, and her Facebook post from April 29, in which she promoted Teen Accounts using similar language to Meta's April 8 announcement but did not specify a relationship with Meta.
Meta's Response
"We proudly work with parents and creators to spread the word about these controls and encourage people to use them," a Meta spokesperson told HuffPost. "Our critics claim to care about safety, but attacking efforts to educate parents proves they are more interested in headlines than actually helping families."
Meta also noted that influencers using the hashtags #MetaPartner or #InstagramPartner are standard for company-backed social media marketing. Influencers have also partnered with other social media apps, including Snapchat, TikTok, and Roblox, to promote the platforms. The TTP report also claims Meta pushed these endorsement videos in its algorithms to get more views.
HuffPost had not heard back from several influencers mentioned in the TTP report as of publication. One poster, Dr. Hina Talib, who has over 92,000 followers and serves as director of adolescent medicine at Atria Health and Research Institute, told TTP that she worked with Meta in 2024 on "two speaking engagements and one social media post." She said she was "provided talking points but I stated that I would not use them, and would instead say what I believe to be true and they could accept or reject it." Talib's video promoting Teen Accounts has over 5 million views and is labeled as a "Paid partnership with Instagram." A Meta spokesperson told HuffPost that the company does not promote creator content that uses hashtags like "Partnering," and if Meta were to boost any video, it would be clearly labeled as an ad.
Broader Context of Child Safety Concerns
Meta has faced a series of legal ramifications over its record on child safety, which have escalated over the past five years. In September 2021, former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen leaked internal Meta child safety studies that revealed Meta was aware its platforms were posing a big risk to young users, especially preteens, but the company was still targeting this age demographic to join.
"What makes this situation particularly concerning is the subject matter," Smith told HuffPost. "These posts weren't promoting a gardening tool or a vacation package. They were addressing child safety, an area where parental trust is especially high and the potential for manipulation is especially serious."
Instagram's Teen Accounts program was launched in September 2024, claiming to automatically place users under 18 into built-in protective settings that made their profiles private, restricted who they could message, and limited their screen time.
"It's the 'Big Tobacco' playbook," Guggenberger said. "It's the playbook of every industry that has a dangerous product or service that has come under public scrutiny. It's trying to co-opt multipliers — influencers — to get them on their side."
The TTP report pointed out that some influencers who made sponsored posts supporting Teen Accounts also contributed to local op-eds advocating for the same legislation Meta supports, without explicitly stating their partnerships with the company. A Meta spokesperson told HuffPost they do not pay people to contribute to op-eds or to endorse Teen Accounts outside of partnership-specific posts.
"Funding influencers, funding these studies — it's not super concerning — but when we're fudging the results or we're making claims in stark contrast to other independent findings, it's more of a gray area in terms of whether Teen Accounts actually work," Bass said. "It starts to feel a little murky. The more disclosure the better."
